seymoure

"Victor, in the Shadows"

Victor felt like there should be some kind of celebration.

After all, this was the beginning of the sixth year he had lived here as a member of the Dolan family. If only the Dolans knew about it.

It had started on a cold winter day, just twenty four hours past Halloween, when he had stumbled upon that open garage door.

He found out later that the house had been struck by lightning and the electrical systems had not held up well. For days the electrical garage door opener had been opening and closing on its own accord.

This particular night homeless Victor took refuge from the wind under a pile of blankets and trash in the back corner of the garage. He was only wakened by the closing of the door. It was closing because Mrs. Dolan was leaving for work and had already gotten into her car.

Usually someone walking by would have awakened Victor. On the street you never sleep more than a couple of hours at a time, and wake at the slightest sound. If you didn’t you ended up without what little stuff you had.

This time, he didn’t wake up. It was probably because of the cold. Being even mildly warm on that floor was seductive and may have caused him to let his guard down.

Now, he was locked in the garage.

His first thought was to panic. And then the heat began to kick in. It was actually warm. The icicles from his beard began to meld.

He looked around and found that the place had not just a refrigerator, but a chest freezer, and they were both packed to overflowing with food.

He took luncheon meat from the fridge, and opened a can of soda. It was ambrosia. It was the first thing in as long as he could remember that he hadn’t retrieved from somebody’s trash.

His stomach filled and his body truly warm, he retreated under his rag pile and fell into a gloriously long nap.

This time the door opening woke him. He peeked out from under his pile and saw Mrs. Dolan return.

She was a stout woman, short with likewise short curly black hair. She wore glasses and had a big smile and a bigger cloth purse. The bag was red and so were her rosy cheeks.

The lady looked to be in her late 50’s and if Victor could have ordered up someone to be his mother figure she would have been in the top 10.

She passed him and closed the door. He took note of the inside garage door control, so he could leave at will. Little did he know that would not be something he would ever find cause to use.

He quickly stole more meat and another soda for his dinner, and then went to sleep under the rag pile.

After the lady had left the next morning Victor was ready to leave. He heard someone moving about in the house and so decided that she didn’t live alone.

This might be the time to get away before the police were called in.

And then he saw a rope hanging from the ceiling.

Cautiously he pulled it down and found a drop-down ladder come silently to him.

At the top of that ladder was an attic that was evidently never used. He hurriedly gathered the makings of a comfortable bed, climbed the ladder again, and pulled it up after him.

What he found out in the coming days changed his life.

The wall that faced the rest of the house was actually next to the Dolan’s bedroom. In what was a nigh well sound proof house, this wall as paper thin.

He could listen to the couple at night time and found out everything about them.

The Dolans were indeed in their late 50’s and as loving and caring a couple as you could imagine. They had been married over 30 years, had a daughter and two grandchildren.

She worked in some sort of social work setting, but he could never make out all the specifics. He was a retired performer who now worked as a novelist.

Vincent was nearly brought to tears by the tenderness he heard nightly as the pair went off to sleep.

He also heard that they were both snorers and made so much noise that nothing short of an exploding shell would have waked them.

That is what gave him the courage to make his next move.

The door that separated the house and the garage was never locked. Why should it be?

It was at this point, about a week into the relationship, that Vincent entered the house.

He made it into the kitchen and found out what a great cook Mrs. Dolan was. By sampling leftovers in her indoor fridge he was nothing less than in awe.

He found that the room closest to the garage was called the “TV Room” and contained a big screen and lounge chairs. The room was sound-proofed and he could watch whatever he wanted without worry of being caught.

For a couple of hours a night he would watch movies (they had a huge collection of VHS and DVD films, it was in the 1000’s) and eat like a king.

He also became more and more interested in these wonderful people.

He found that, by manipulating the air conditioning vents that came though his attic, he could listen in on almost any room in the house.

Victor was desperate to have a family.

The reason he was homeless was part of the reason. He had been in a car crash and all of his family had died. However, he didn’t remember any of it. Taken to the state mental facility he was treated for a while for his amnesia. After a year state budget cuts had pushed the “not a danger to himself” cases like him out onto the street.

Without resources or memory of any kind of training, he was left to fend for himself.

He realized that if he had ever known how to read, that had also fled his mind.

So he wandered the streets and learned that life, and was beginning to unravel when he came across an open garage door and became a ghost member of the Dolan family.

He kept learning about the family. They were not dirty housekeepers, but they were sloppy. Now and then, as a present, he would do a little cleaning.

At one point the house filled with “Grandchildren” stuff. Toys and games, and the like.

He made a commitment to himself to use this opportunity to teach himself to read, using the learning tools he was now finding scattered about the TV room at the end of a long Saturday visit.

To his amazement, it wasn’t hard. He told himself he must have known all along, and he just needed a jump start to remember.

Now he launched into reading everything in this highly stocked library.

His thirst for knowledge was fueled by the great ideas he found all around the Dolans. They were obviously well educated and he wanted to be also.

He knew it was foolish, but he wanted them to be proud of him.

He had become worried about “the folks” as he found himself calling them.

They were not in good health, and that made him fearful.

Not that he would lose his new found home. Hell, he had lived on the street and he could do so again if needed.

He worried how either of these good people could survive without the other.

Maggie (Mrs. Dolan) doted on her husband (Phil) and he lived for her.

But, when “The Event” happened there was more fear than anything Victor had ever imagined.

It was about 3 days after the anniversary that it came about.

Victor was enjoying a bowl of pumpkin soup left over from that night’s party. He was also into the third chapter of Phil’s new Detective novel. He was enjoying both things immensely.

Then he heard the sound. It wasn’t big, but he was used to listening for sounds in the house. Phil had a habit of getting up in the middle of the night to write, and Victor didn’t want to get caught.

But this sound was from the downstairs floor. The folks didn’t come downstairs at night.

He silently moved to the bathroom door, since the bathroom was connected to the TV room and he could check out the kitchen from there.

Someone was jimmying the glass doors at the back of the house.

Why would a burglar come here? They didn’t have a lot of salable goods.

Victor decided that these were not smart thieves. He would have to deal with them with that in mind.

They might ever be on drugs, and that changed the equation to, in ways that made it much more dangerous.

As the door slide open three young men came into the house.

One was oriental, one was black and the other was, as much as he could tell in this light, white.

None of them was older than 16.

They seemed armed only with crowbars. They might be here just to do damage, rather than to steal.

It was at this moment that Phil turned on the light upstairs.

That almost ran them away.

They were so startled by the light that they fell back a footstep each.

Then they looked at each other and decided not to look like cowards to their friends and moved back into the house.

Victor dropped his clothes and reached for one of the many swords in Phil’s collection.

He then ran, silently but with the sword swinging over his head, into the room.

The boys looked at him, saber flashing, naked and jumping, and turned and ran out.

Victor ran to the door and locked it again. Luckily there was almost no damage to it.

He quickly turned and ran back into the TV room.

How had he had the nerve to do that?

Then he remembered where the great idea came from. Phil had done a comedy routine on one of his albums about doing the same thing to some Jehovah’s Witnesses.

He peered out the door of the TV room and watched until the light upstairs went out.

He put back on his clothes and sat back to read.

He hoped that that was the last great threat to the folks, and that his life could go on in the same wonderful way it had been.

Then he fell asleep in the chair.